You’ve seen these things, right? Around Christmas, when they’re really common? “Just whack and unwrap!” Taste good, too.
How are they made? They have a central core with about thirty or forty “slices” branching off of it, with no visible seams. Are they molded whole, in sections, or slice by slice? The first seems too delicate an operation, the third too arduous, and the second combines the two problems.
Any chocolate engineers out there? Do you get your ears bitten off first, like the chocolate bunnies? Thanks in advance.
The dark chocolate ones are incredible!
I originally bought one for the nobvelty, but found myself fascinated by the engineering involved in their construction. I spent quite some time closely examining each tiny peice and here’s my WAG:
Each “slice” seems to have been produced individually in a mold ( the pattern is only on one side, and the opposite side is slightly concave).
The chocolate “core” has a slightly different texture and is flush with one side, while the other end is convex
So, I believe, the “slices” are molded and assembled into a sphere (perhaps with wax paper in between) and then the “core” (probably made of chocolate with a slightly lower melting point than the “slices”) is poured into the center.
I went on a tour of the Terry’s and Rowntree’s chocolate factories in York, England, where they make Polo Mints, Smarties and also Chocolate Oranges, a while ago. The segments are made in unlimited numbers in moulds. These molds are on a conveyor belt and each mould holds exactly the number of segments needed to make one orange. This conveyor belt goes around a corner, for lack of a better description, and the corner is “ramped” much like a corner on a car racing circuit. This has the effect of bringing the moulds from the horizontal into the vertical, and as the ramping gets more pronounced the two ends of the mould touch and so effectivly bring the seperate segments of chocolate together into a ball-like shape. The next machine injects a slug of molten chocolate into the center of this ball to bind the segments together, and the mould falls away. The really spectacular part is the wrapping of the final orange; a machine which is capable of wrapping 60 oranges every minute brings the whole oranges above a board with an orange-sized hole in it, underneath that hole is a rectangular piece of foil ontop of yet another hole. A plunger pushes the orange through the first hole and onto the foil, then through the second hole so that the orange has been 80% wrapped up. A “thingy” (is this gettting too technical for anyone?)grasps the neck of foil left above the orange, much like you would form an “O” with your forefinger and thumb, and another “thingy” spins the orange one revolution and voila, the orange is wrapped. Whap a little sticker on the top to keep it all together and Bob’s your mother’s brother. The machine also puts it into those boxes and all but the details escape me. And all this is done 60 times a second! More than you ever wanted to know about chocolate oranges and at no extra charge.
Except that I’ve never heard of a “chocolate orange” outside of this thread and have no idea as to what you are talking about.
I gather it is a round chocolate ball made up of a bunch of chocolate wedges, sort of like the way an orange looks. But I don’t recall ever seeing or hearing of them before this. Are they a regional thing, or have I just not been looking in the right stores?
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Great job, Moonshine! Just the right amount of technical vocabulary! Used to live near a Hebert Candy Mansion and go in to watch chocolates being made, but they didn’t have the chocolate covered oranges.
However, I was taught that it is “thingie”
is the correct spelling. The ie being the more female ending than the y which is more masculine. A struggle for English which as been getting rid of gender distinctions for years and years. And I’d go on to explain more but I’m just kidding!!!
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The only thing I can add to oyur description is that the chocolate is orange flavoured and it’s very yummy. The seem to be more popular in Canada and other Commonwealth countries.
Keith
I might also add that the most popular brand of chocolate orange is that made my Tobler, the Swiss chocolate company that also makes Tolberone (the triangular shaped chocolate bar). The Tolber company has been bought and sold several times over the last couple decades. I believe it is now a division of Kraft (which is a division of tobacco giant Philip Morris). I don’t know if they are still made in Switzerland.
(I’m from Switzerland and) I never saw a chocolate orange until I moved to the USA. So either they are a recent development or else not sold in Switzerland. I will investigate more and report back.
Excellent post Moonshine! I almost thought I was there in the factory.
Not exactly off-topic but has anyone tried the hot chocolate that is orange-chocolate flavored? (I want to say Cadbury’s makes a Drinking Chocolate in this flavor but I could be wrong.) I have some (in packets–not Cadbury’s) but I don’t particularly care for it. Just wondering if I am the only person to like chocolate oranges but not the drinking kind.
The UK brand name is “Terry’s Chocolate Orange”, available as an orange, a bar or a pack of individually-wrapped slices, in milk or dark chocolate. The manufacturer is Terry’s Suchard.
Little Known Fact: The Terry’s factory was the basis for Roald Dahl’s Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Roald lived outside the walls of the factory and couldn’t see anything, only smell the chocolate night and day. As the factory has 7 gates and he only saw people entering through one he (correctly) figured that that wasn’t nearly enough people tomake all that chocolate, so he made up the Oompa Loompa’s who’d stay in the factory and make chocolate all night long. Aahhh.
